Publication Guide
The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is the definitive US scholarly society for the mineral sciences. Founded in December 1919 and headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, it runs a small but authoritative publishing program: American Mineralogist, its flagship peer-reviewed journal published continuously since 1916; Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry (RiMG), the field's standard review book series co-published with the Geochemical Society; and Elements, a bimonthly magazine co-published with 17 partner societies worldwide.
Unlike large commercial publishers, MSA's portfolio is deliberately focused. If your work concerns mineralogy, crystallography, petrology, geochemistry, mineral physics, or planetary materials, the society offers one of the most respected homes for it. American Mineralogist is published in partnership with De Gruyter Brill and hosted on GeoScienceWorld, giving society-journal papers wide library distribution. This guide covers which MSA venue fits your work, what publication costs to expect, how peer review runs, and how to submit.
Which MSA venue fits your paper?
| You're most likely to... | Choose this route |
|---|---|
| Have original research in mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, or crystallography | American Mineralogist - the flagship, eight issues per year, covering Earth and planetary materials research including high-pressure mineral physics and analytical methods. |
| Have a short, high-significance result | American Mineralogist Letters - shorter format with a lower publication fee (~$1,000 for open access). |
| Be invited to write an authoritative review of a subfield | Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry - multi-authored review volumes tied to short courses; roughly 90 volumes since 1974. Chapters are invited, not openly submitted. |
| Want to reach a broad mineral-sciences audience with a thematic piece | Elements - bimonthly magazine co-published by 18 societies; issues are theme-based and articles are written for a broad geoscience readership. |
What MSA publishes
- American Mineralogist: An International Journal of Earth and Planetary Materials - established 1916, MSA's official journal since 1919. Scope spans mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, petrology, bio-geochemistry, high-pressure mineral physics, and analytical methods. Indexed in Scopus, Web of Science (Science Citation Index), GeoRef, Chemical Abstracts, and INSPEC.
- Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry (RiMG) - the official review series of MSA and the Geochemical Society. Started in 1974 as Short Course Notes, renamed Reviews in Mineralogy in 1980 and RiMG in 2000; nearly 90 volumes to date. RiMG chapters are among the most cited works in the field.
- Elements - a full-color international magazine of mineralogy, geochemistry, and petrology, published bimonthly since January 2005 by a consortium of 18 societies including MSA, the Geochemical Society, the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Mineralogical Association of Canada.
- MSA also publishes monographs, textbooks, and the Handbook of Mineralogy.
Open access and publication fees
American Mineralogist is a hybrid journal with a notably author-friendly structure: you can publish at no charge and accept a 12-month embargo before the article becomes freely available, or pay an article processing fee for immediate open access under a CC BY license.
| Route | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate OA - letter | ~$1,000 | Short-format papers |
| Immediate OA - regular paper (3-12 pages) | ~$2,500 | The typical case |
| Immediate OA - long paper (>12 pages) | ~$4,500 | Length-tiered fee |
| Delayed free access | $0 APC | Article opens after a 12-month embargo |
| Green self-archiving | $0 | Accepted-manuscript archiving permitted; check the current policy |
Fees are revised periodically - always confirm on the journal's author-information pages before submission. Some De Gruyter Brill institutional open-access agreements may discount or cover fees; ask your library. No blanket low- and middle-income-country waiver policy is published; contact the editorial office to discuss options.
Peer review
American Mineralogist uses single-anonymized peer review: reviewers know author identities, authors do not see reviewer names unless reviewers sign. Manuscripts are handled by an editorial team led by two editors-in-chief with a board of associate editors covering the journal's subfields. Accepted manuscripts appear quickly as Papers in Press ahead of issue assignment. The journal does not publish average decision times; they vary by manuscript and reviewer availability.
How to submit
- Check scope. American Mineralogist covers Earth and planetary materials research; purely descriptive work without broader significance is a hard sell.
- Prepare the manuscript. Double-spaced, 12-point type, US Letter format, submitted as DOCX, RTF, or PDF. Abstracts up to 800 words. Use the American Mineralogist template on SciSpace to match formatting and the MSA author-year citation style.
- Mind the language and AI rules. Non-native English speakers should have a fluent colleague review the text first - manuscripts needing extensive language editing are rejected without review. Use of AI tools must be disclosed at submission.
- Submit online. Submissions go through the journal's own online submission site (linked from the author-information pages at msaweb.org), not a generic ScholarOne portal.
- Track and revise. Decisions, reviews, and revisions are all handled through the same system; accepted papers post as Papers in Press.
Ethics and integrity
MSA is a COPE member and follows COPE guidance on authorship, corrections, and retractions. Authors must disclose AI-tool use, declare conflicts of interest, and deposit supporting data and crystallographic information files where applicable. As a non-profit society publisher, MSA's publication fees fund society programs rather than shareholder returns.
